Which language to use when communicating in different markets?
Cecilia Tran
2 replies
Heyhey, this is something I have been debating with myself about for a while and would love to hear your opinion on this.
We are currently building Fika - Asia's AI social and dating app. Our first market is Vietnam - where English is not as established as a language, so it would make sense to do marketing in English. However, we also have grand plans to expand around all of Asia, which has a huge number of different languages. After travelling to different countries around SEA, it's very apparent that one-size doesn't fit all - unless you're a company like Apple.
Therefore I'm wondering what your take is on this.
Replies
Stefan Pettersson@stpe
It is all about target audience and expectations. In some countries if the target audience is only younger people, rather than senior citizens, English may work better than the native language because it is perceived as "cooler". In other countries not.
But in general you do benefit from localization, but it does definitely come with a huge extra work load in terms of product, development and marketing. And localization is not only language - especially for marketing, to tap in to local holidays, etc. So it kind of depends on budget too...
However, it doesn't have to be either-or, there can be a middle ground. For example, I've got an English-only app in App Store. But I did have different screenshots for the US and internationally (time format, fahrenheit/celsius, etc). I also did translate the text, only on the App Store screenshots, for the German market. I don't know if it is only due to that - but I have an unproportional amount of buyers from Germany vs other countries.
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When you're targeting a specific region, of course you'll need localization. Although it requires a ton of extra work, but (as I see it) it's inevitable when entering a specific market.